Sunday, April 21, 2013

Further Thoughts on
Qigongs

By way of caveats, let
me state up front that the intersection of martial-arts training to TCM
(Traditional Chinese Medicine), in its functional, physical sense, is fairly
recent (in terms of years) and surprising to me.I have no
expertise in TCM and I would opine, on the other hand, that most westerners
(even most Asians, I’d venture) involved in TCM don’t think in the functional
terms that I’m using as a perspective in these essays.The general thrust of my thinking is that the
corpus of TCM was derived from a physical, practical basis and because of the
aspect of an “etheric” (if you will) aspect of TCM and qi, there’s been some
sort of misunderstanding, in many cases, about qi discussions.It seems highly likely that the theories
about strength and qi were the result of a focused interest long, long ago in
how the human body worked.

I’ll try to deal, as
best I can, with some ideas about the origin of the etheric aspects of “qi” in
a future essay, but for now, in this essay, I’ll give my opinions about some
further aspects of qigongs that might help a beginner get his foot in the door.Incidentally, this essay isn’t meant to
discount the sensations, etc., associated with various “qi flows”, and so on…
it’s just that the topic is tangential to the physical aspects that are the
focus in this discussion.

In the immediately previous essay (Breathing Exercises, Yoga,
Balloon-Men, etc.), the idea of conditioning of the body fascia,
connective-tissues, and so on was prominent.In the early essays done on Silk-Reeling and Six Harmonies movement (on
this blog) there were a lot of opinions about connecting the dantian to the
muscle-tendon channels (from which the acupuncture meridians are derived) in
order to control the body.The same
principles apply to qigongs as do silk-reeling movement:control lines from the dantian to the
extremities are developed through the muscle-tendon channels and through the
“mind-intent” control of forces from gravity and the solidity of the ground.

Qigongs like the Yi Jin Jing are considered the original
mechanism from which most other qigongs and martial-systems using the jing-luo
theory derive.Breath, pressure,
stretch, and movement connected to the dantian are used to strengthen the body
connections delineated by the twelve “channels” or connected tension-lines in
the body.

Qigongs like the Ba Duan Jin, also called the “Eight Pieces
of Brocade”, rely on the development and conditioning of the eight
extraordinary meridians/channels.The “Eight
Pieces of Brocade” aka “Eight Pieces of Silk” is a metaphor for eight
areas/layers/pieces of fascia.

Chinese martial-arts as Qigongs

In a relation to qigongs, almost all Chinese martial-arts
make reference to the interplay of their intrinsic postures and the
meridians/channels of the body.So, as
an example in Xingyi, one of the primary elemental strikes, p’i chuan, is related to the Lung Meridian
and the practice of that strike is supposed to develop areas of the body
affected by the Lung Meridian (perhaps by just rubbing one arm on top of the
Lung channel in the other arm).If you
think about it, the idea of developing meridians/channels in Xingyi or other
Chinese martial-arts is the same basic idea in the movements of almost all
qigongs: the various postures and movements relate to the development of
specific channels/meridians of the body.

Yoga’s postures were almost certainly aspects of this same general
principles, originally, because there are too many parallels to pass off as
coincidence.

Developing a few
examples in qigong usage

Knowing what meridians or channels are associated with the
various postures or movements in a qigong (or martial-art movement) can help you
clarify a qigong-related movement.So
instead of just going through a nice series of “flowing motions” that look
particularly fetching and exotic when done in a white silk suit, you can
examine how you take a particular meridian/channel and condition it with
relaxed stretch, pressure, jin, dantian-movement, and so on.Developing and working a meridian/channel in
this manner is an additive method to needling or tuina/shiatsu manipulation of
the channels/meridians.

As has been emphasized before, you have to have a physical
connection from the dantian/hara to the hands or feet to control the extremities
with the dantian. However, first some
feel for the ‘suit’, through the breathing and stretching and other exercises
mentioned in the previous essay, needs to be developed. It takes a while to develop this kind of
connection, so therefore it’s important to always keep a light stretch-connection
from the dantian or mingmen to the hands and feet while learning to move with
the dantian and practicing your qigong.

You have to have a physical connection from your
dantian/hara to an opponent’s center, in martial-applications, so you have to
learn to maintain that connection, also. Think how many times you’ve heard an
instructor say “push harder” or “grab tighter”… that’s to help him get a
connection through bone (yang qi) or connective-tissue (yin-qi) to your center.

It really only takes a couple of months to begin feeling the
connectivity of the ‘suit’, but some parts of the ‘suit’ develop more slowly
than others.The hands and fingers and
arms tend to be the first places where ‘suit’ (really, a part of the qi)
develops and you can feel the tensile/elastic connection.The legs tend to be the last places to
develop where you can feel the connections, and so on.

As you breathe in, particularly while using
reverse-breathing, you can feel a pulling inward from the extremities of the “suit”.Different channel/meridians (but not all of
them) begin or end at the tips of the fingers or toes. Often, you will be “breathing
in the qi” from a specific point, but generally, in my opinion, you’ll get
satisfactory development of the ‘suit’ and channels by just doing general
reverse-breath inhale (keep it light!) while staying slightly stretched
out.Gradually, the defined feeling of
the channels will appear.

Specific areas of the body can be conditioned by physically
stretching the area prior to the inhale.For instance, if you’re trying to develop the front of the ‘suit’, arch
slightly backward and move the arms backward as you’re breathing in to
physically heighten the amount of stretch.As you exhale, visualize letting the slight stretch from breath and
position relaxing toward the dantian (“relaxing” in the sense that a rubber
band “relaxes” when you let one end of it go).

If you’re attempting to strengthen the sinus and lungs, to
use and example that was mentioned in the previous essay, look upward and
elongate the neck slightly during the inhale.Think of “breathing qi in through the Yintang point”, pulling or
stretching the elastic connection from the Yintang point (between the eyebrows)
toward the lungs.Then, on the exhale,
let the elongation relax toward and into the dantian.The visualization and “breathing inward” will
quickly develop into a slight tension or pulling feeling.

Another example might be where you exercise the connective
tissue within the abdominal cavity by stretching it upward upon inhale, in a
health-oriented qigong.Try to somewhat vertically
separate the internal body components of the upper thorax from the abdominal
cavity and notice the stretch that you induce in the connective tissues in the
abdominal area.

Along the “suit” of the human figure the general rule is
that during the inhale the tissues contract/pull in toward the dantian on the
inside and lower areas/channels of the limbs as you “breathe the qi in”; then
the “qi flow” returns back along the outer/upper/back areas of the limbs as you
“exhale the qi”.There is always an
overall feeling of tensile-elasticity relaxing toward the dantian, the central
controlling point of the body, upon exhale.

“Qi flow” and tensile-elastic changes during movement and
breathing are strongly related.The
positions and movements that most efficiently coordinate with the overall map
of tensile connections and contractions have much to do with the basic logic of
the “channel” system that accords with TCM theory.Discussions about “spiraling” and “winding”
also have to do with tracking the “qi flow” as the points of maximum tension
move along the spirals caused by the interplay of front- and back-suit on a
body with limbs that developed originally from a cylindrical origin.

Static Holding Example

As a last example from which to illustrate a general point
about static use and training of channels, let’s use the odd-looking paths of
channels/meridians seen on the head.After you have done a couple of months (or more) of persistent ‘suit’
development with breath and stretch (don’t overdo it; get your physician’s
approval; keep it light and quit at the first signs of a headache), you should
be able to do a standing posture of the “tree hugging” variety and relax,
allowing the tensile connection of the shoulders and arms to be held by the
endpoints of the channels on the head.

Slightly elongating the head upward will actually allow the tensile
channels on the tops of the arms and shoulders to be held by the tensile
channels at the sides of the head.Two
of the channels most frequently coming into play would be Large Intestine and
Sanjiao.The suit along the back and
fronts of the body are also aided by lightly keeping the head up (remember that
the dantian cannot move the extremities without a connection of some sort).And of course, the breathing during a
statically-held posture is used to constantly tension and release the ‘suit’,
while pressure increases and decreases within the “balloon man”.

Two of the holding channels involved in 'tree hugging' posture.

As mentioned in previous essays, the classical perspective
of the body’s strength is that it develops largely by converting and using the
solidity of the ground and the downward pull of weight.Extraneous usage of muscle for strength is to
be avoided where possible, in the classical view.The bones propagate the solidity of the
ground upward through the configurations of the body’s frame; the muscle-tendon
channels control the opening and closing of the frame.Generally speaking, the tensions of the “closing”
(gravity-related) channels is somewhat more than the tensions in the “opening”
channels, often at about a 70-30 or a 60-40 ratio.

As you turn and twist you can feel the various tension lines
of the suit come into play as they hold the body against gravity or convey some
other necessary tension in order to maintain structural integrity.Bear in mind that various muscle-tendon
meridians work together as needed in order to do something, so often you can
feel the tension-play of two or more muscle-tendon channels come into play as
you move.The dantian is the mediator of
which channels are used and it is the overall manipulator of the body via the
channels and skin of the ‘suit’ (metaphorically like the skin of a Balloon
Man).

Stretching, pressure, tensions, contradictory jins,
dantian-control, etc., are practiced in qigongs, but the general rule is to
relax and not to overly-maintain artificial tensions or contradictions.In some ‘hard’ versions of occasional arts,
you’ll see constantly maintained tensions, but generally these are not
following the classical admonitions if they are done with overt tension (“hard
qi” development).There is a difference
between muscular tension and jin tensions.Relax, but stay connected.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Breathing Exercises,
Yoga, Balloon-Men, etc.

Basic Information
related to qigongs, stretching, packing, etc.

The connective tissue or collagen-based tissues of the body
run through everything in the body tissues, except for the teeth (the bones
have a lot of collagen in them).Even muscles
have a lot of connective tissue around and within them: think of the idea that
if you removed the meat cells from the muscles, you’d have an empty,
fine-filament net made out of connective tissue.

Generally speaking, the main idea in strengthening the connective
tissues and tendons is to stretch, stress, and hold them.In other words, by manipulating (including
twisting) various fasciae in the body, you can strengthen them.Holding a stretched tissue in position helps
to strengthen it; this is the core idea of a lot of various standing postures.You can also strengthen the fascia tissues in
and around organs by stretching, stressing with internal pressures, twisting,
holding, and so on.

The various Asian breathing and postural methods have a lot
to do with the idea of strengthening the connective tissues, for the most part,
although there is more to than that, of course.There are some more sophisticated aspects of breath and posture
training, but this essay is simply meant to provide some baseline information
on breath-related training and not go into much more than a general overview.Like other exercises, breath training can be
overdone and thus be potentially injurious, so it’s better to have a
knowledgeable trainer and regular medical monitoring.

Many Qigongs, but only
a few principles

In Asia there are a number of variations on the breathing
and conditioning approaches and there are a number of different preferences for
the postures that are used.The general
idea in a qigong (including Yoga styles), though, is to condition the body via
an approach focused on the fascia (including the fascia contained in muscle) and
to use a set of sequential postures that most adequately addresses all of the
body areas, internally and externally.Relaxing physically and mentally is usually a part of these exercises,
but not always…. we’ll simply assume the relaxing part of the discussion and
limit this essay to an understanding of the basic physical aspects.An additional aspect of good and complete
qigongs is the use of “intent” or jin forces (see previous essays).

Many people think that a qigong (and any good Asian
martial-art which is based on qigong principles) is a series of movements which
somehow imbue benefits just from the sequence of postures.In much the same way, many people think that
the ‘magic’ of a Taiji form is in the sequence and choreography, as well.In actuality, the benefits come from how the
body is managed during the sequence.In
other words, a qigong, a Taiji form, etc., is a type of workout regimen in
which the body is moved and conditioned in specific ways.

The fact that the actual workout part is difficult to see
has led many people to focus on the choreography and to miss what is really
going on in qigong-related exercises and martial-arts.To be fair, the “how-to-do” of the body
mechanics, qi, jin, dantian, etc., is often not shared with everyone by the
real experts, so focusing on the choreography is an easy mistake to make.

Naturally, every proficient practitioner has a concept of
the ideal qigong workout/regimen in terms of conditioning components, efficacy,
how things should be done, which areas of the body are conditioned in what
order, and so forth… so there are a great number of opinions about the best
qigong, yoga set, or similar breath-related exercises.Some qigongs contain training components that
are variations and/or improvements on the components in other qigongs, but an
understanding of the basics will help to pick and choose the appropriate one
for personal use.The point to remember
is that even though there are many seemingly different breath-related
exercises, they all actually revolve around only a few simple principles.For instance, the Ba Duan Jin, the Yi Jin
Jing, and old Yoga exercises are all related, in principle.

You don’t need to learn a lot of forms… one form done
correctly can contain all the training methods that are needed.

Two ancient Japanese statues portraying the gods of Inhale and Exhale

Concentrating the
Breath and Developing the Suit

The two basic aspects of breath-related exercises to bear in
mind are:

(1.) The
stretch/stress training of the tendons and fascia, including holding positions.

(2.) Building up your pressure ability in the dantian.Gradually both of these conditionings are
spread to encompass all of the body, but let’s just leave the discussion at how
to get started and the ideas behind the practices.

Many qigongs and neigongs (a neigong is a more focused
version of a qigong) first start off by bringing inhaled pressure to various
parts of the body and manipulating the body and the pressure.Quite possibly, though, time can be saved by jumping
to first how breath can be used to pull in the areas of the “suit” (see the
essay on Silk Reeling and Six Harmonies Movement for a discussion of the ‘suit’
model).Let’s try to work our way
through an example in order feel how the breath pulls in the ‘suit’ and then
we’ll discuss pressure.

There are basically two major categories of breathing:
Natural Breathing, in which a deep abdominal inhale is allowed to push out the
belly/abdomen and kidney area; Reverse
Breathing, in which an inhale is somewhat contained by holding in the abdomen
and perineum areas.Although both types
of breathing have conditioning benefits and both are used, reverse-breathing is
the classical hallmark of much of the martial breathing exercises.

Preliminary Exercise to
feel “Suit”

Stand upright (head pushed lightly upward) with the arms
stretched out to the sides, palms to front and slightly up, fingers straight
and perhaps even bent slightly backward.Inhale through the nose while pulling the belly slightly in and try to
pressurize the abdominal area, even down to the perineum.If you pay attention to your finger/hand
area, you should feel a slight pull or contraction in that area.That’s the feeling you’re looking for: a
contraction/pull that is related to an inhale.It is a slight pulling, almost subcutaneous, and ultimately you’d like
to lightly do variations of this type of conditioning until you can feel a
slight pull all over the body and a slight increase in pressure inside the body
with every breath that you take.Your
breath “pulls the qi in” and the type of breathing that uses this slight
pull-in of the abdomen is, as mentioned before, “reverse breathing”.

You can garner similar sensations and effects of the ‘suit’
pulling inward by trying these variations:

1.Standing in the
same outstretched position as above, begin your reverse-breathing inhale while
slightly pulling in the belly area, but stop actually inhaling air at about 2/3
of a breath and attempt to pull the rest of the air in through the pores in
your skin.You should feel a contraction
of the skin from this visualization.This is elementary “skin breathing” and it causes a contraction that can
be felt.

2.Again, stand in
the same outstretched position and use a reverse-breath to inhale about 2/3 of
the way, but then try to pull the rest of the breath in through the tips of the
fingers, toes, elbows, knees, shoulders, etc.Again, you should have a similar pulling sensation, but this
visualization is just another variation.A similar variation has you imagining that the inhaled pressure is
squeezing your bones.All of these
visualization methods induce a pulling and pressure-like feeling and
conditioning of the ‘suit’.

Note that by first stretching the body or an area of the body
which you want to condition, it is much easier to effect the pulling
sensation.Therefore, it’s always best
to maintain a slightly stretched posture while doing qigongs/yoga/etc., or to
bend in such a way as to pre-stretch the area you want to condition with your
inhale.

At first only worry about progressing with the goal to
spread the ability to pull various areas of the ‘suit’ at will.Keep the muscles very relaxed in order to
work on the suit and not involve any muscle tension.Later, with some qualified advice, you might
add contraction of the suit as a step, or even some judicious muscular tension
if your art is more of a Shaolin variety.Be careful, though, because it’s easy to do things wrong or to go off on
a training tangent where you waste a lot of time and you have a difficult time
returning to the path.

The pulling sensation (and pressure components),
incidentally, is part of the conditioning that results in a skin that is
difficult to cut or puncture.Hence,
some of the old qi tricks about spear points on throats, beds of nails, hooks
in skin (seen all throughout Asia) as parts of religious and training rites,
and so on.Since the skin actually
contracts minutely on the inhale, some people use a well-trained suit in the
hand to lift smooth, dry objects like a small mirror, a polished knife blade,
etc.They put their hand on the object
and quietly inhale to initiate the adherence. It’s a form of “sticking” power.The traveling Beijing Acrobats used to have a
guy that demonstrated this trick on a water-cooler bottle laid on its side.

Another example would be the previously-mentioned idea of
inhaling while pushing the face upward in order to tension and strengthen the
connective tissues between the lungs and the sinuses.Over a period of time, some sinus conditions
can be favorably assisted by this type of “qi” exercise for the sinuses because
it effects an actual conditioning of the tissues.

Still another example is the near-titillating qigong/neigong
which is famously pictured with some male practitioner hanging a large rock
from his genitalia.The basic idea is
the same as the sinus example and many others: a pulling sensation is
established via breath-training and then the hold and stretch is practiced
until the tissues are conditioned.To
hold a contraction/tension while returning to normal breathing is a skill that
comes with time.

Basic Pressure and
Tensioning

As you inhale with a reverse breath, pressure builds up in
the abdominal area, or in other areas you may choose to focus on after you have
some practice and experience behind you. Gradually, you should also begin inflating the
kidney area as part of the inhale. One
of the old, commonly-heard sayings about qigongs was “first, concentrate the qi
behind the navel”, or something along those lines.This is a reference to the abdominal pressure
and condition developed from breathing exercises.

The ‘suit’ also contracts slightly with each breath, after
it has been trained for a while.So
within the body there are stresses caused by the increase in pressure and by
the pulling inward of the suit during inhales.These stresses condition the connective tissue and also massage the
organs and other body tissues.Because
each inhale pulls inward on the body (and the body slightly pressurizes), the
bones are also lightly pulled and compressed inward with an inhale. Over time,
as has been noted for centuries in Chinese martial lore, the bones tend to
become denser because the stressing causes some bone growth.As your ability to bring the slight tension
associated with an inhale (and the resultant slight pressure within the body)
increases, you’ll notice that the idea of a “Balloon Man” is fairly good
descriptor.

“Locks”

In concert with the “Balloon Man” idea, the slight
pressurization and pulling in of the ‘suit’ strengthens and assists the body’s
connections.Naturally a weak spot in a
balloon would weaken the overall integrity of the balloon and analogously in
the Balloon Man, weak areas in the structure can cause a loss of
integrity.In the human-shaped “balloon”,
the two major weak areas are the mouth and the anus.For this reason, the mouth is normally kept
closed (tongue touching palate behind upper front teeth) and the anus/perineum
region is normally slightly pulled up in order to counter any bulging and loss
of integrity in that area.So we have
three pressure related actions that are done in many/most breathing excercises:
pull in/up the perineum/anus area of the pelvic floor in order to keep that
area from expanding under pressure, pull in the abdominal area during inhale in
order to assist in developing a light pressure, and if you’re doing
a pressure-hold in more advanced breathing exercises, tuck the chin as an aid
to prevent pressure from building up in the head.These three movements are the same in Chinese
qigongs and Yogic locks (bhandas).While
there are much more exotic-sounding “energy” reasons often attached to
descriptions of Yogic bhandas, it seems probable that their origin was based
upon the manipulation of pressures while conditioning the body.A lot of modern yoga seems to be missing an
understanding of internal conditioning of the fascia via the pressure
methodology.

I know of some groups of people who use fairly high
breath-induced pressures to develop an “Iron Shirt”, the ability to withstand
blows, and so on. Some of these people
have gone so far into pressure artifacts that they have induced health-related
problems.The point being that there are
training cautions; a person should rely on expert advice and common sense in
all of the types of training that we do.

Movement as part of
Qigongs

Several previous essays have dealt with movement,
muscle-tendon channels, dantian usage, etc., and the movement of Open and
Close.A traditional qigong is going to
include movements that are based around Open and Close, using the power of
Gravity, the use of mind-intent jin, and the use of the dantian to control the
body through its ‘suit’ connection.

Usually movement within a qigong begins with the body
expanding and opening with the inhale assisting the opening movement.An exhale accompanies and assists the closing
and contraction of the body.As a person
progresses in development, the role of breathing changes somewhat and the focus
is more toward pressurizing and tensioning the suit on the inhale and the
exhale assists in the closing and contraction associated with the exertion of
power.Exhale when exerting power,
although there are some slight modifications to this idea as a person becomes
further advanced.Sometimes the inhale
while tensioning the ‘suit’ and exhaling on the exertion of strength goes
beyond the usage in the sense of a “qigong” and becomes a more muscular “dynamic
tensioning” exercise; the two things should not be confused.

There are traditionally only the two main forces which
derive from gravity: upward forces based upon the solidity of the ground being
propagated by the body’s structure and downward forces which derive from
gravity.Horizontal forces in the body
are actually composed of the Up and Down forces working at angles through the
body frame.Traditionally, then, there
are six primary directions: Up, Down, Frontward and Backward from the body, and
out and in to the sides of the body.A
good qigong will usually address body movement in those six directions.Other postures are usually for development
and conditioning of tissues within the body and externally, as well.

Here is a good example of a basic qigong; qigongs similar to
this are done in many styles:

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Dantians, Centers,
Haras: Centers of Power

In the essay
on silk-reeling and Six Harmonies movement, there was an odd implication and
question that came to light about the muscle-tendon channels. The muscle-tendon channels are connected
lines/channels/groupings of muscles connected by tendons and fascia as
functional conveyors of strength and power along which the “Qi of Earth” and “Qi
of Heaven” act.

Strength and
qi are always related, so it’s not incorrect to say that strength flows along
the muscle-tendon channels and it’s not incorrect to say that “qi” flows along
the muscle-tendon channels.Viewing the
muscle-tendon channels from that perspective puts a different light on the
acupuncture meridians… which apparently derive from the muscle-tendon channels
(Deadman et al, A Manual of Acupuncture).The point is what has hitherto mostly been
viewed as metaphysical “channels” or “meridians”, actually seems to have had a
functional origin.

Along those
same lines, many of us on the old Neijia List were somewhat surprised to see
Chen-style Taijiquan experts having muscularly-developed “dantians”, when for
the most part, we had all viewed the “dantian” as some metaphorical reference
to an “area of change” (field of cinnabar).
It was puzzling to find out that the
dantian, in expert practitioners, was actually muscular and articulate.It could be moved/rotated like a separate
organ.

One of the
first questions in my mind was “which came first… the rhetorical dantian or the
functional, muscular dantian?”.The odds
of someone positing a rhetorical dantian first and then by some miracle a
muscular dantian was developed later seemed to be absurd, so it seemed
unavoidable that the functional, muscular dantian arrived first.And actually, since there is plenty of
literature talking about movement starting at the dantian, it all makes sense.

The dantian,
as discussed in the Silk-Reeling essay, controls the muscle-tendon channels; it
is the main nexus of power through the human body.There’s actually a back-side to the dantian
at the Mingmen point at L3 of the lumbar vertebrae, so the front muscle-tendon
channels are mostly affected by the abdominal dantian and the rear
muscle-tendon channels are affected to varying degrees by the Mingmen and by
willed control of the “suit” (fascia aspects of the qi).Generally speaking,a person who has trained his “qi” uses the
dantian to control the body.The dantian
gets its power from the solidity of the ground or the weight from gravity,
mostly.There are two major exceptions
to the general power statement, but for purposes of simplicity, we’ll leave
those discussions for another time.

Our human
bodies are no longer the ancient cylindrical creatures we evolved from,
although generally speaking our muscles and connective tissues and bone still
reflect the ancient cylindrical origin.Over time we developed arms and legs (and a
tail, but alas we have lost that over time), so the muscles, fascia, and bones
adjusted the basically cylindrical shell to accommodate moving the limbs and
head.So it’s logical that there are
secondary nexuses of power for the legs and the arms.The nexus for the legs is the “lower dantian”
just inside the perineum area of the pelvic cage.The nexus for the arms is the chest dantian,
on the sternum in front, matched by a corresponding area on the back.

Naturally, there
is also a nexus of power/movement at the hollow of the throat.The endpoint of the elastic connections
through the vertical axis of the body seems to be the sinuses at the uppermost end.The sinuses are connected to the lungs, in
TCM theory, and sure enough you can feel that elastic connection if you inhale
deeply and tilt your head upward.

I’ve heard
it said that a person’s “kung fu” (accomplishment of skill) hasn’t crossed into
excellence until the lower dantian is developed to the point that you’re aware
of its functioning as you move.

The main
idea of this discussion was to offer once again the idea that the main dantian
that controls movement in the “internal strength” sense is a functional thing,
but there are other functional dantians in the body which are slaved to the
main dantian.These ideas seems fairly
obvious when you think about them, but again there is a nagging question about
the relationship between “qi” and strength.Since qi and strength always go together, in the old qi-paradigm, has
there been a slight skewing of perspective when we’ve talked about dantians and
chakras as “centers of power”?What part
of that “power” was functional strength and what part was the elusively-defined
“qi”?

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Addendum to Earlier
Posts: Dantian as Origin of Forces

During a two-handed push against your partner’s chest there
should be a jin path, of course, but a western engineer will see that push
differently than a traditional Asian martial-artist that uses a dantian-centric
art.From a western perspective, there is one line
from the ground to the hands (in a coherent body), but from a traditional
Eastern dantian-centric viewpoint, forces originate from the dantian and go out
simultaneously to the legs and hands.

While this perspective doesn’t make a lot of sense, at
first, it actually does a lot to help understand the discussion about the
muscle-tendon channels, forces, connections, the dantian’s control of the body and
so on that are described in the earlier essays on this blog.Because of a few side questions about this
aspect, I decided to add this to the baseline level of knowledge that is
helpful for people to understand.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Qi, Structure,
Connection, Gravity

"Qi" is a sort of generic term that can cover a
number of things. A Chinese friend of mine who speaks excellent English said
that when he grew up he always thought of qi as meaning contextually something
like "the energy in things around us". So air can have qi from oxygen
and pressure, as an example. The earth can have qi in gravity (the ground
support and the pull downward). Food has energy within it. A light bulb can use the qi of electricity.
And so on.

The human body can use the Qi of the Earth (see the essay on Reeling Silk and
Six Harmonies) in the sense that the solidity of the ground can provide a
supporting force that can be applied to objects (your computer is being held up
by the ground in just that way right now). Downward forces can be effected by
harnessing the body's weight through overall connection.In other words, the notable qi aspect of the
earth is gravity and in the classical sense as much use should be made of the
ground’s support and gravity’s weight in doing everything.A simple example might be for a native porter
to carry a load on the head by letting the structure of the body convey the
ground’s solidity to the load.Structures and channels along which the qi of the earth and the qi of
heaven work are representative aspects of the Qi of Man.More on that topic later.

If your partner is in a good stance, he can be difficult to tip over and he can
probably hit hard from that stance. Assuming your partner is not using a
muscular stance, but is instead letting the "qi of the earth" go
through his frame, he can be relaxed but solid. On the other hand, if you are
facing your partner and twist him into some awkward stance, it is easy to push him
over because he “has no qi”. “No qi” in this case doesn't mean that there isn't
some mysterious energy flowing through the person’s meridians; it means that
the "qi of earth", the solidity of the ground, can't be propagated
through an awkward or unconnected body frame.You “have qi” depending on the way you have developed your body and the
way that you use the qi from the earth and the qi from the heavens/air.

The first thing to note in this discussion about qi and body
mechanics (there are other issues about qi than just this one) is that without
the two primary powers of the solidity of the ground going upward and power of
weight/gravity pulling downward there is no power except muscular power.What if you push sideways off from a wall, by
the way?That wall has no stability if
it is not supported by the earth somewhere. So the wall’s strength also derives
from the powers of gravity.Sideways
forces from the body can be generated from angled versions of the two primary
powers of gravity.The classical
preference is to let the solidity of the ground or the down-weight of gravity
do as much work as possible by manipulating the body and the dantian.

The Three Internal
Harmonies

Generally speaking, the body’s qi from a structural
viewpoint is twofold: the bones/skeleton propagate the support of the ground
upward and outward for the “Yang qi”; the connective tissues, tendons, etc.,
allow for pulling forces, the “Yin qi” in a downward and inward direction.

The body has a natural ability to adjust alignment
directions from weight, weight-shifts, incoming forces, and so on.For instance, if you are carrying a heavy
back-pack, your body will automatically make force compensations for the
different and off-center stresses the back-pack’s off-center weight/mass
causes. You can actually learn to
voluntarily manipulate the body’s normally involuntary force-compensation
mechanisms in order to the direction and origin of the forces of gravity
through the body’s frame.Willfully
manipulating the direction and origin of forces is generally referred to as using
the “Yi” or “mind intent”.

But what is being manipulated? The qi involves
micro-adjustments, functionally, and those adjustments will involve the
muscles, connective tissue, and bones, but on a very small level of
movement.You can get a feel for this
aspect of qi by standing in a good, centered stance with one foot in front and
one behind.Weight is in the
middle.Imagine a very strong wind
coming into your front and you stand against it by letting the back foot handle
the push (don’t tense the body; let the foot hold the wind push).Then imagine the wind suddenly comes from
behind and pushes you so that the front foot is holding the force.If your body was centered, you shouldn’t have
to make any shifts or adjustments.Now,
alternate imagining a front-wind push for a couple of seconds, then a back-wind
push, then a front-wind push.Try not to
make any muscle tensions in your body, but just feel as it adapts to the slowly
changing wind directions, front then back then front, and so on.You should feel a slight tingle in the body
with each body adjustment to the changing wind.That tingle is the qi as it prepares for each force change.

The tingle of “qi” preceding a force being readied was
noticed by the ancient Chinese and was encapsulated in the old saying about the
Internal Three Harmonies: “The heart (“Xin”, the root of “desire”, in the old
view) triggers the mind (the “Yi”), the mind triggers the qi to where it is
needed, and the qi precedes the strength (the “Li”).So the saying was “Xin – Yi, Yi – Qi, Qi – Li”.

Using the mental manipulation of qi, we can engage an
incoming force in any of a number of directions, blending with it so that the
resulting force of the encounter becomes what we wanted for an outcome.See the first essay in this blog on “Jin” for
a slightly more-detailed discussion of the simple interaction of forces using
the mind-directed qi.

Another thing that we can do is mentally manipulate the qi to
set up contradictory forces within the body; these forces can create balance
(as in the Six Directions) or they can be used to augment force generation.However, the qi precedes any forces; forces
do not generate qi.

The Strange Directions
of a Push or Hit

Although it might seem a little bit off-topic, it’s worth
noting a further point about the traditional nomenclature and view of the
dantian’s relationship to a directed-qi push.

When you push or hit someone with the ground’s solidity that
is propagated through the body, it’s easy to think of the force from the ground
to the hand (shortest practicable path, please!) as being extended by the
joints expanding.For instance, I could
arrange with my “intent” to have a ground-solidity-connection from my foot to
my hand and I could simply expand that connection by straightening my knee, my
bowed back, my elbow, and so on.That’s
usually the best way to learn, but there is a more sophisticated perspective
someone who has developed the dantian’s control of the connected body (see
again the discussion on Silk Reeling and Six Harmonies).

In the traditional view, forces originate from the dantian
and to push someone, qi is sent simultaneously from the dantian to the ground
and to the hand while the dantian rotates.So, in a way, a push or hit to someone is really a push to the ground
using the solidity-of-the-ground, or jin, path.If you’ll think about this perspective, it means using the strength of
the lower body to push with the upper body.Even to raise your arms, you actually send the qi to the ground
first.You “sink the qi”.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

I've opened a discussion group on Facebook called "6H". There's one other group by that name, but it's in Chinese, so they're not hard to differentiate.

On 6H there will be some discussion that overlaps essays on this blog, but generally speaking, the longer and more serious essays will be to this blogsite.

6H is viewable to members after they have subscribed and membership is generally open. Thoughtful additions, comments, critiques, questions, are welcomed. Ranks, styles, and bickering need to be left at the door, please.

I keep reading and hearing about “Tai Chi teachers” that use Iron Shirt
training as part of their Taiji. Always, when I hear this, I wonder if they
don’t understand the difference between “hard qi” styles and “soft qi” styles
like Taiji. I think what happened was that as Taiji gradually worked its way
from northern China to southern China, a lot of people were taught, but they
were never shown the intricacies of the internal training, the qigongs of Taiji,
and so on, so people began adding training methodologies from the commonly
practiced southern Shaolin styles of the South.

Hard qi practice involves the muscles, dynamic tension exercises, pressure
buildups, and so on. If they do a standing practice within their style, there
will be a deliberate extension of the limbs with some degree of muscular
tension. Naturally, the fascia and tendons will be trained in this way, so a
person will get strong, but it is not the same method of the softer or “relaxed”
styles (like the Fangsong in Taiji). Here’s a video of a hard-style qigong
practice that obviously derives from the Yi Jin Jing of Shaolin; there are many
common hard-qigong bits on display here and most hard-qigong styles use a lot of
the same postures and practices.

Soft qi practice involves more of a focus on allowing the solidity of the
ground and the weight of the body to do most of the work. The body’s elasticity
is developed and the complete body is manipulated by the dantian, sort of like
twirling the arms of a toy octopus by turning and moving the large mass of the
head/body in the center of the arms. The mental manipulation of forces
(“intent” forces) supplements the movements. Here’s an example of a soft qigong
using jin and the body connection and some dantian as used in a “soft” qigong.
Note that I don’t think this man is using the dantian as much as, say, someone
in Bagua or Taiji, but he’s in the same general category, IMO.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Addendum to Internal versus External

I noticed the previous blog got mentioned in an ongoing discussion on AikiWeb and I'd like to point out that the essays on this blog are pretty much in the "basic knowledge" arena. I.e., there are aspects of the internal-versus-external discussion that are not contained in these essays and they add content that would seriously affect the discussions on the forum (or other forums)... if anyone was aware of those factors.

The problems I see with a lot of the discussions on various forums like AikiWeb, Rum Soaked Fist, and others, is that too often the commenters unknowingly betray the fact that there are components of the discussion that they're simply unaware of or they wouldn't have made some telling statement in the first place.

I might take a thread sometime and highlight some posts by would-be "experts" and then explain some of the areas they just revealed that they don't know. Not to humiliate anyone particularly, but to show that too many of the 'experts', many of whom are also 'teachers' aren't really beyond the amateurish stage.

One of the big problems I've had over the years is that I consider myself to be an amateur who has spent a number of years trying to find all the details of "internal strength", but I listen to a lot of self-styled western "experts" chatter away, not knowing that they've just told me they know far less than I do.

If I'm an amateur, how are these people "experts"? They're experts "with years of experience" to other neophytes, but they'd never be experts in the eyes of real experts. I know enough about what I know to understand where I'd rank in the eyes of a real expert... I know enough to know that I'd be pretentious to claim the mantle of 'expert'. Anyone can impress neophytes; few people can impress real experts. Think about that when you're reading a lot of the popular web-forums and understand that there's a lot of depth and sophistication that is not brought into the conversations because few people have that information.

Monday, January 21, 2013

“Internal versus
External”

This is a slightly different approach to a topic on a
previous blog about “internal” and bragging rights, but I’ve been thinking
about the way terms are used and how confusing it is for a lot of people to
decipher the jargon.

I use the phrase “internal strength” a lot because it is the
best or most-convenient translation of the word “Neijin” where “nei” is
“internal” and “jin” refers to the trained body usage of the forces from the
earth and the air.That’s the original
“internal strength”.My initial interest
was in jin skills when I started doing Taiji around 1982; I didn’t really start
investigating or thinking much about the dantien until the late 1980’s.So it was the “jin” in “neijin” (internal
strength) that was my primary interest for a long time.

The problem with jin skills, conditioning skills, real
dantien involvement, and so on, is that most of the Chinese martial arts have
these things to some degree in one way or the other, but those arts are still
divided into “external” and “internal”, regardless.Over the years I’ve learned to trust the idea
that an “internal martial-art” tends to use the dantien more than an “external
martial-art”, but there can be overlaps.It’s a good rule of thumb, though.

As I’ve mentioned before (see the blog on Silk-Reeling),
it’s a fairly common Chinese martial perspective that the Six-Harmonies view of
movement was predominant at an earlier time.There are still many arts that have “Liu He” (“Six Harmonies”) in their
formal names, but the number of arts now actually using those movement skills
has decreased greatly as hand-combat has declined in the face of
distance-weapons (pistols, etc.).

The Six-Harmonies type of movement depended a lot on the
dantian strength, articulation, and connection to the rest of the body.Why is that important?It added power.If you have felt a room shake from, say,
someone demonstrating a powerful p’i chuan (not everyone can do this in Xingyi)
or a room shake during a standing one-legged shake from a Chen-style expert,
you would better understand that this type of power is unusual.How does that relate to actual
martial-application?That’s something
worth investigating and thinking about on your own.What are the roles of the dantian in
Six-Harmonies movement?More than most
people in the West understand, if you read some of the wild comments on current
martial web-forums.It’s all an
interesting puzzle.

Can someone not using Six-Harmonies movement be strong
through neigongs (internal exercises, usually involving breath, pressure,
beating of the body, and other things)?Of course they can be strong and hit very hard.But to focus on just strength is to miss the
point and the many factors that make Six-Harmonies movement so complex and
interesting.

Is a different type of training “internal” even though it
does not depend on dantian-centered movement.Well, that’s the common confusion: there is a difference between a style
that strengthens the internal membranes, tendons, and so on, and a style that
truly moves in the manner of one of the “internal martial arts”.It’s a common debate with no resolution in
sight.

The point, though, is that the old famous Six Harmonies type
of movement, using the dantian, was considered the peak of martial-movement styles
in the old days and that’s why so many of today’s arts, whether “internal” or
“external” still quote from the classical admonitions that were attached to
Six-Harmonies movement.

This type of actual movement (as opposed to someone claiming
it, but not actually doing it), is probably the easiest distinguishing mark of
what would nominally be the “internal martial-arts” as compared to those that
are “external”.It’s tricky to
differentiate all the arts into one category or another, but I’d suggest that
actual, not superficial or partial, use of Six-Harmonies movements would be one
of the best movement-skills to look at to determine what is “internal”.

Is your style “internal”?Well, it’s pretty easy to spot in the basic movement, so it shouldn’t be
too hard to get an opinion from a real expert.It’s similar to watching much of the bull-like struggles that amateurs
often call “push-hands”… a lot of Chinese experts I’ve seen just shrug and say
“that’s not Taijiquan”.It’s fairly easy
for an expert to see what is missing, not just in Taijiquan, but in
six-harmonies movement; it’s easy for an amateur to not see what he does not
know in the first place.We all go
through that as part of the process.

Many very different types of training resulting in very different
types of body conditioning are passed off as being “internal strength”.In other words, there are so many conflicting
stories out there that it’s probably wise to do as much investigation as
possible before committing yourself to years of study.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Just Relax?

“From Extreme Softness Comes Great Strength/Hardness”

“These Strengths are not Intuitive; They Must be Learned”

In the early
blog on this site about Silk Reeling, there was some discussion about how
relaxing allowed the entire length of the muscle-tendon channels and connective
tissue to be trained as a whole.In the blog on Jin there was discussion about
how local joint usage diluted the strengths from the support of the ground and
from gravity; the idea is to relax local tensions in order to let the ground’s
support and gravity do most of the work.

The overarching
idea is that in order to learn a new form of movement you have to stay relaxed
while learning the new movement… otherwise, old movement habits will be
retained and you will make no progress.

Overall, in
this series of blogs, there has been discussion about re-training/re-patterning
the body to use strength in a very different way than the way we’ve done it
since babyhood.The second italicized
quote above says it all: “these strengths are not intuitive; they must be
trained”.Trying to train while at the
same time maintaining your old strengths and tensions means that you cannot
learn to re-pattern the body in the new way.It’s for this reason that in early training, many old habits must be
unlearned and that often means avoiding movements, etc., that only reinforce
the old ways of moving.

For
instance, weight-lifting using your old form of strength, doing the same old
forms and techniques, applications, and so on, will stop progress into a new
form of movement because you will confuse your body doing a little bit of the
old movement and a little bit of the new movement.

Learning to
use the power of the earth’s support and gravity, using the dantian, using
breath, using the body as a connected unit, etc… that’s a new form of
movement.Or it should be, if you’re not
just doing an incomplete assimilation of the new skills.

Learning new
skills requires relaxation, for the above reasons.However, many times a distortion, based on
misunderstanding, creeps into some peoples’ martial training.Some people begin to think that if they just
relax, somehow the skills of the internal arts will visit their body.Occasionally I hear of some martial-school
where the instructor has encouraged students to work until they’re completely
exhausted and then they will learn to move in a ‘relaxed’ way.The problem is that no matter how exhausted
and ‘relaxed’ someone is, there’s still the question of the basic movement
skills.Those skills take knowledge,
information, practice, and some years to learn.Getting exhausted so that you’re ‘relaxed’ is not going to teach you how
to move with dantian, jin, kokyu, etc., any more than getting exhausted and
relaxed is going to suddenly imbue you with the ability to play the piano or
analyze quantum mechanics.

Another
point to make is that a person cannot really relax unless they’re
conditioned.I’ve often seen someone who
is physically strong brag about the fact that he is “relaxed”.Sure, he’s relaxed, but he’s strong, and
99.9% of the time he’s still mostly using normal strength, despite any claims
to the contrary.Being “relaxed” can
happen in normal strength or in internal strength, but a limited knowledge of a
few jin tricks is not going to ever result in the type of relaxation referred
to in the old classics about internal strength.

Let’s look
at the example of lifting the two arms upward as is done at the beginning of
most Taiji forms.The average person
emulating that movement is going to mainly use shoulder muscles.They’re never trained any other way to lift
the arms, so even if they get exhausted and ‘relaxed’, they’re still going to
use those shoulder muscles.They have no
concept of any other way to do it.

A
knowledgeable Taiji practitioner is going to use jin, the body connectivity,
the dantian, and so on, to lift the arms.It will look the same (usually) as the other way of lifting the arms,
but it’s very different.To lift the
arms with dantian, connectivity, jin, etc., takes a long while to learn and it
also takes some amount of practice to become proficient and strong in moving
that new way.Only after that new
strength has become conditioned can the practitioner really “relax”.Working to exhaustion is not the same thing
at all.

As the body
becomes conditioned and patterned to hit or move with the whole-body, dantien,
jin, and other factors, its power becomes great and feels very hard when a hit
or application is made.That’s why there’s
the old saying about “Great hardness comes from extreme softness”.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Shun and Ni: the Two
Opposing Directions of Twist Inherent in the Body

A lot of the
old classical Chinese literature describes functions of the body, the body
strength, the importance of some body parts, and so on. In other words, there is an attempt to
describe and analyze the way the body and universe work:these descriptions should not be confused
with directions for doing things. There
is an old Taoist diagram of the body that I’ve always liked, although I’m not
sure it’s totally accurate:

There are
actually references in the above picture to the kidneys, the lungs, the spine
as a channel for energy, the dantian, the liver (those trees), and a number of
other things.The point is that the
functions of the body were something carefully defined and delineated in terms
of health and strength, but descriptions of functions are not how-to’s.

Some other
commonly-seen drawings about the body have to do with the way strength is
propagated via generally longitudinal “channels” and acupuncture
meridians.Again the dantian is
prominent as a player in the function of body movement via the muscle-tendon
channels.

The body
naturally bends and winds in ways that are dictated by the skeleton and the
natural lay of the muscles, tendons, and connective tissues.The winding of the body is another item that
has been categorized and defined at a basic level.Essentially, there are two opposite ways the
body can wind: one way and the other way.In other words, the discussions of the body’s spiral-like winding is
just another of the basic descriptors like “dantian”, “muscle-tendon channels”,
bones, and so on.The fact that the body
twists or spirals in two different directions is a component descriptor of the
body’s workings, but it is nothing more than an acknowledged part of an
analysis of how the body works.

The two
opposing windings affect the way the whole body twists, but we can basically
describe the windings as something like “come to” or “Shun” and “go against” or
“Ni”.In other words, if you hold your
hand palm-inward in front of your face and then push it out away from your face
so that it’s palm-outward, the arm just spiraled in a “Ni” manner.Bringing your hand back, palm-inward, in
front of your face will be spiraling in the “Shun” manner.

Ni uses the
back of the ‘suit’ (see blog on Silk-Reeling) and the ground’s support to
expand away; “Shun” uses the front of the suit and gravity to close toward the
body.If we do an arm-wave as described
in the Silk-Reeling blog, half of the circle you will be doing Ni winding away
and half of the time you will be doing Shun winding toward.These directions are Yang and Yin,
respectively: you go from one into the other in the manner of the Taiji change
of Open and Close.

It’s common
to include a reference to the basic description of the body’s natural windings
as part of the logic of the strength/qi borrowed from the Qi of Earth.In other words, using the solidity of the
ground and the weight from gravity, the body will wind in one of two ways.A lot of old martial arts used to establish
their bona fides by mentioning the dantian/hara, the windings, the breath, and
so on.Here are a few illustrations
showing the traditional view of windings in the Six-Harmonies (Reeling Silk)
type of movement.

Note: these
natural movements of the body are the two possibilities; just because they’re
combined into one drawing doesn’t meant that you do them both at the same time:

The
description of the Shun and Ni windings also apply to the secondary dantians at
the perineum and at the chest-dantian.Here’s an example of a drawing showing the two potential directions of
windings from the perineum (lower) dantian:

Part of the
training of the body-connection/’suit’ is done through relaxed stretching and
holding of that stretch.In the
martial-arts that use held postures for training, you’ll see this sort of
“antagonistic” (sometimes called “contradictory”) training.Quite often someone without a lot of
knowledge or experience will confuse the “contradictory” winding trainings with
isometric training.They’re not the same
thing.A person has to learn to
differentiate between contradiction, isometrics, and jin.

Another
point to bear in mind is that there are many possible permutations of winding
patterns, so it is impossible to say there is only one way to wind up, down, in
or out, except to note that there will generally be a balance along the lines
of “if one side is open, the other side is closed”, but that would be true of
any balanced system.

Here’s a
picture of an old Chen-style posture, one hand in front and one behind, that
uses contradictory training in standing practice:

Baguazhang
uses a lot of contradictory winding postures, but they do many of them while
walking the circle, etc.

Of course
contradiction and stretch can be done without winding, but the discussion of
which is jin, isometrics, or contradiction arises again. There is a big difference in how things are
done in those three choices, even though they might look the same to an
inexperienced onlooker.

Contradiction
and holding-postures helps train the body connectivity. The main idea has to do
with a correctly-trained holding and stretch, whether done linearly or
spirally.The old Taiji discussions
about “pulling silk” (chousijin) and “reeling silk” (chansijin) were about
linear and spiraling movement.Since the
Yang-style has publicly stated that they also use reeling-silk movement, there
is no longer any disagreement in the correct type of movement that is supposed
to be used in the neijia arts.